Quote

I tell you it's no joke to paint a portrait. I wonder that I am not more timid when I begin. I feel almost certain that I can do it. It seems very simple. I don't think of the time that is sure to come when I almost despair, when the whole thing seems hopeless.

William Morris Hunt

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William Morris Hunt
Age: 55 †
Born: 1824
Born: March 31
Died: 1879
Died: September 8
Artist
Drawer
Graphic Artist
Lithographer
Painter
Sculptor
Brattleboro
Vermont
W. M. Hunt
William M. Hunt
William Hunt
wm morris hunt
Thinking
Seems
Paint
Come
Begin
Timid
Whole
Wonder
Portrait
Feel
Almost
Portraits
Feels
Sure
Hopeless
Thing
Simple
Joke
Time
Tell
Despair
Think
Certain
Jokes

More quotes by William Morris Hunt

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Let me give you a few simple rules for learning to draw. First, see of what shape the whole thing is. Next, put in the line that marks the movement of the whole. Don't have more than one movement in a figure you can't patch parts together. Simple lines then simple values. Establish the fact of the whole. Is it square, oblong, cube, or what is it?
William Morris Hunt
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Give up the idea of 'color' for awhile! Consider masses - values, only... One dark and one light place in every picture.
William Morris Hunt
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Compare constantly, lines and angles... Hold looking-glass before your model and your drawing. Take a second's glance only, and see if the impression be the same. If it be not, ask, 'What is the difference?
William Morris Hunt
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There is force and vitality in a first sketch from life which the after-work rarely has... In your sketches keep the first vivid impression! Add no details that shall weaken it! Look first for the big things! 1st. Proportions! 2nd. Values - or masses of light and shade. 3rd. Details that will not spoil the beginnings!
William Morris Hunt
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Art teaches you the philosophy of life, and if you can't learn it from art, you can't learn it at all. It shows you that there is no perfection. There is light, and there is shadow. Everything is in half tint.
William Morris Hunt
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When an artist leaves his work to amuse people, he loses his time and their respect. If people are to be amused by artists, it must be by employing them in their legitimate occupation.
William Morris Hunt
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Children should learn to draw as they learn to write, and such a mystery should not be made of it. They should be encouraged, not flattered... then [later in life] double the effort is required to get the facility which might have been gained insensibly.
William Morris Hunt
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What is nobler than a man wresting and wringing his bread from the stubborn soil by the sweat of his brow and the break of his back for his wife and children!
William Morris Hunt
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Beauty is that little something that fills the whole world, and is contained neither in a single straight nose, a long eyelash, nor a blue mountain. Some see it in a leg of mutton, others in a compound fracture and to expect others to accept one's own definition of it is as absurd as to expect all humanity to use the same toilet-brush.
William Morris Hunt
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You can always draw as well as you know how to. I flatter myself that I feel more than I express on canvas but I know that is not so.
William Morris Hunt
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How are we going to make painters by lecturing to them? We are going to make questioners, doubters, and talkers. We are going to make painters by painting ourselves, and by showing the paintings of others. By working frankly from our convictions, we are going to make them work frankly from theirs.
William Morris Hunt
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Elaboration is not beauty, and sand-paper never finished a piece of bad work.
William Morris Hunt
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Imagination comes in after we have experience.
William Morris Hunt
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Believe that time is going to help you do what you want.
William Morris Hunt
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You are to draw not reality, but the appearance of reality!
William Morris Hunt
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There is force and vitality in a first sketch from life which the after-work rarely has. You want a picture to seize you as forcibly as if a man had seized you by the shoulder! It should impress you like reality!
William Morris Hunt
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How are things visible? Can you see an egg against a white background? Not by drawing a line around it can you make it evident.
William Morris Hunt
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There's lots of fun in this world, after all. And if there isn't, there is in the next. And we're going there, sure.
William Morris Hunt
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The artist is an interpreter of Nature. People learn to love Nature through pictures. To the artist, nothing is in vain nothing beneath his notice. If he is great enough, he will exalt every subject which he treats.
William Morris Hunt
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You can't do a fine thing without having seen fine examples.
William Morris Hunt